The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-04-28
THE EVE OF MARRIAGE.

lnC lChtiiS mansion was WlUllIn
the line of fire from the Federal batteries,
and months previously had been abandoned.
Miss Pickens had been received into the resi-
deHce OF her relative, Gen Rhett, which was
supposed to be beyond the range of their
guns, and had so far escaped being hit by
a; y of the monstrous projectiles that flew
into the city. On Christmas eve the we'd
ding party were assembled in the parlor of
the Rhett mansion, one of the large and
handsome houses so common on all the river
frontage of old Charleston. Divested of its
costly and elaborate decorations that had
gone to swell this or that Confederate fund,
the great room looked barren, chilly and
forbidding. Candles We're almost an unat-
talnable luxury then-the city gas works
had long been wrecked by exploding shells
and some homemade device of illumina-
ton only lit up the little space occupied by
the lover and bride and clergyman Save
for the brilliant uniform of the soldier and
the white robes of the priest of the EpiSco-
pal Church, there seemed no color or warmth
in the apartment Finery appropriate to
the wedding ceremonies of distinguished
people was not to be found in theConfederacy,
and while the dozen of guests were men and
women who had known the Opulent and
luxurious life of good society in the ante
6ettum days of Charleston they were low
reduced to homeSpuns and coarse cottons.
With the harsh diScordance of the bonn
bardment filing their ears, and with the
knowledge that the bridegroom must at
once quit his wife's side for service with his
command, a sense of apprehension and sor-
row brooded over the assemblage. The
most serene and self possessed of all present,
the newspaper reports said, was Miss Pick
ems, whose stately beauty was heightened
by contrast with the surroundings.
WHEN THE SHELL BURST
The clergyman's voice broke the silence of
the group with the reading of the marriage
form, and he had just reached the interrOga-
tories when the horrible roar of a shell
vastly louder than those flying over the dis
tant sections of the city drowned every
other sound. 1t came from an advanced
battery that Gen. Foster had recently
opened well up on the inner side of Morris
Island and within four-mile range of the
Rhett residence. The 200 pounds of iron
loaded with incendiary material described a
trajectory that ended upon the roof OF the
house, from whence it crashed through the
intermediate floors and burst in the midst of
the wedding party.
When the sitting smoke had cleared away
and men could breathe free from the slIf-
locating fumes of the powder, the apart
ment-its walls and ceiling being partly
blown out, its furniture knocked into chips,
| blood spattered everywhere, fragments of
human forms strewing the hoors-was a
scene of INDISPENSABLE terror. Three of the
wedding guests had been instantly killed,
and not person in the room had escaped
injury of some sort Lieut.. de Rochelle and
the clergyman were only slightly hurt, but
| Miss Pickens was PROSTATE and saturated
with the blood that streamed from where
| her shoulder had been cruelty torn by a
fragment of the shell. A surgeon pro-
nounced her dead, but when she was laid
upon a couch she slightly revived and en-
deavored to speak, each heave of her breast
causing the blood to flow in an increasing
current
De Rochelle approached her side and
placed his ear close to the lips that were
painfully struggling to utter Ineligible
words. Her eyes sought the clergyman with
look that begged him to draw nigh. He
! did so, and De Rochelle, catching as by
inspiration her meaning, asked her If she
would have the remainder of the ceremony
performed before she died. Again she made
the effort to speak and failed, and the sur
geon warned them that her life was ebbing
fast: but the consent which she could not
voice found expression in an infection OF
| the head.
Then the clergyman, with his robe stained
| from the wound he had received, stood over
the couch of the dying woman whose hand
had sought that of her lover, and proceeded
with the reading of the holy ritual in the
apartment from which the slain had not yet
been removed, and where the blood was still
fresh and reeking. When he put the ques-
ton whether she would have the man beside
| her for her welded husband her attempt to
answer brought on the paroxysms OF mortal
dissolution. Foam fiecked her lips and her
face became ashen gray, but with final
and supreme exertion she murmured, 81
will" Christmas came in at midnight
with the laundering diapason of the never
silent cannonade, and the morning sun
broke upon the dead face of Margaret Pick.
ems de Rochelle. And this is the story told
by the marble in the Christ church home OF
the silent majority and remembered by
Charlestonians unforgetful of the beauty
and grace of the daughter of South Caro-
| lina'S first war Governor.